College Park

Again without much discussion, College Park City Council took one last procedural vote clearing the way for the city to borrow $19 million to build a new City Hall (approximately $14 million of the cost) and to renovate and redesign Duvall Field (approximately $5 million). The measure was approved with councilors Fazlul Kabir (District One) and Denise Mitchell (District Four) voting against. The vote occurred at College Park’s Sept. 10, 2019, meeting. During discussion Kabir said he was concerned about how the borrowing would affect the city’s ability to execute other projects down the road.

“We have a limited ability to spend, and if we spend too much it limits our abillity to do more in the near future,” said Kabir. “The residents do have wishes about other projects.”

City Hall renderings available

College Park city officials have released the presentation of proposed interior designs for the new city hall.

VeoRide isn’t the only scooter game in College Park, it seems. Dockless escooter titan Bird has recently been seen in College Park hawking its “micro mobility” devices to newly-arrived students here for the fall semester.

Last week, an eagle-eyed reader spotted Bird representatives showcasing their scooters at an event in the parking lot of Vigilante Coffee on Baltimore Avenue. According to city officials, Bird scooters is not planning to launch a dockless scooter system in College Park. Rather, they are marketing their monthly scooter rental plans. Unlike a dockless system, subscribers are issued their own personal Bird-branded escooter for about $25 per month. Bird did not respond to media inquiries for this story. In August, College Park launched a new semi-dockless bike and scooter-share program with Chicago-based VeoRide.

College Park, anticipating the construction of a new city hall, met for the first time in Davis Hall in northern College Park. The meeting was a worksession for City Council, which saw the body discuss such issues as design elements for College Park’s new City Council chambers, and a proposed “unruly social gathering” nuisance law under consideration. It’s not only Council that has left for new digs: the entire operations of College Park have been disbursed throughout the city in anticipation of the City Hall’s construction. Davis Hall is named for the second Mayor of College Park, Dr. Charles R. Davis. During the meeting, City Manager Scott Somers praised city staff for their work to relocate the city’s offices and infrastructure from City Hall to Davis Hall and other facilities.

“They’ve done a lot of work trying to bring all of the logistics to this room.

A new filing with county planners has revealed more details about a planned Marriott Hotel near College Park’s Metro station.

Earlier in August, developers filed a preliminary plan of subdivision to redevelop a site at the northwest corner of Campus Drive and Corporal Frank S. Scott Drive in College Park.

According to those documents, developer Soltesz has filed an application seeking approval of a preliminary plan of subdivision for the project. The has been received by planning staff, after emerging from a pre-acceptance phase of review. Further, a natural resource inventory – a kind of catalogue of the site’s natural elements to be preserved, accommodated or compensated for its removal during development – was filed and later approved by Prince George’s County Planning Department staff in December. New filings now reveal the scale of the proposed development. According to the documents, Soltesz plans to build a 123,400 square-foot hotel and commercial development at the site.

Commuters who use College Park’s Metro station to get from A to B are in for major changes as construction on the Purple Line and a large mixed-use apartment complex ramps up in September. Further, lane closures on Campus Drive are set to take effect by Aug. 26, as students return to class at the University of Maryland. Starting Sept. 1, 2019, the bus loop on the eastern side of College Park’s Metro station and the large surface parking lot along River Road will be closed to accommodate construction for these projects.

A public parking lot near College Park’s Metro station could become a Marriott Hotel, if developer plans pan out. Details are limited at the moment. However, according to documents filed with Prince Georges’s County planning authorities, development firm Soltesz LLC has partnered with the hotel chain to develop a hotel with ground floor retail elements at the northwest corner of Campus Drive and Corporal Frank S. Scott Drive in College Park. The northwest corner of that intersection is currently occupied by a drab, lightly-used, public parking lot. The property is currently owned by Prince George’s County, according to state land records.

Dozens of ear-witnesses in College Park, Greenbelt and Berwyn Heights, including this journalist, reported hearing a loud, explosion-like boom in the early-morning hours of Sunday, Aug. 18, 2019. The noise rattled residents, who took to social media to report their experiences. As of Sunday evening, no definitive cause for the noise has been disclosed by local officials.

At its Aug. 13, 2019, meeting, College Park City Council approved a measure authorizing city staff to borrow approximately $14 million in city funds to build a new City Hall that will also share space with University of Maryland offices, as well as approximately $5 million to fund new athletic fields for Duvall Field, the city’s largest public park. In so doing, College Park City Council rejected calls from a vocal group of residents to put the matter before voters as a referendum in the city’s upcoming November municipal elections.